A Gold Medal & Gold Presidential Lapel Pin Return Home: Enhancing The Legacy Of Morehouse College President John Hope

President John Hope I Fall 1928 I Alpha Zeta Chapter

By Bro. BMaynard Scarborough [APID No. 815]

APCAA President & Founder

On August 14, 2025, history came home. The Alpha Rho Chapter Alumni Association (APCAA) of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. announced the acquisition of one of the most significant artifacts in HBCU and civil rights history: the 1936 NAACP Spingarn Gold Medal awarded posthumously to Morehouse College President John Hope. For nearly nine decades, the medal stood as a national testament to Hope’s visionary leadership. Now, it joins the growing Alpha Rho Chapter Collection at the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, where his story will live on alongside the men and women he inspired.

The Spingarn Medal is awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for an outstanding achievement by an African American. The acquisition was made possible by Hope Family Estate Trustee Mrs. Alice Anderson Hope, widow of President Hope's grandson Bro. Richard Oliver Hope (APID No. 428), and facilitated by Acquisitions Caucus Vice Chairman Bro. Earl Norman Caldwell II (APID No. 847).

A President, a Brother, a Trailblazer:

Bro. John Hope, a proud member of Alpha Phi Alpha, became Morehouse College’s first African American president in 1906 and later the first Black president of Atlanta University. He dedicated his life to education as liberation, shepherding generations of students into leadership during an era defined by segregation and racial violence. His work made him a towering figure in both Black academia and the national struggle for equality.

When Hope died on February 22, 1936, at age 67, the loss reverberated across the nation. The Morehouse College Maroon Tiger, in its March 1936 issue, published heartfelt coverage of his passing, capturing the grief of an Atlanta University Center campus suddenly without its guiding light. Later that year, the NAACP honored his life’s work with its highest award — the Spingarn Gold Medal — solidifying his place among America’s most distinguished leaders.

Symbols of Leadership Preserved:

The APCAA’s acquisition of Hope’s Spingarn Medal is paired with another remarkable artifact: his famed 1926 Morehouse College Presidential Gold Lapel Pin. The pin, once worn as a symbol of academic leadership and integrity, carries the same spirit that animated Hope’s presidency. Together, these treasures embody his dual roles as statesman and servant-leader, and they now sit within a collection dedicated to preserving Alpha Phi Alpha’s extraordinary legacy at Morehouse College.

Hope’s legacy of leadership found powerful echoes in the civil rights battles that followed his death. One striking moment came on March 17, 1960, when the Atlanta Daily World covered the City Court arraignment of Atlanta Student Movement demonstrators. The defendants included Attorney Donald Lee Hollowell and student activists such as Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Marion Wright Edelman, Julian Bond, and Alpha Rho Chapter brothers Richard Oliver Hope (Fall 1958) and Norman Patrick Range Jr. (Spring 1958). Their sit-in demonstrations against segregation were part of a continuum of courage that stretched back to Hope’s era, embodying the very principles he had championed from his Morehouse office.

A Growing Archive of Black Excellence:

The Alpha Rho Collection now preserves not only John Hope’s medal and pin, but also an extraordinary range of artifacts from the chapter’s most legendary members:

• Bro. Maynard Holbrook Jackson Jr. (Spring 1956), the first African American mayor of Atlanta

• Morehouse presidents Bro. Hugh Morris Gloster (Fall 1930) and (Acting) Bro. Wiley Abron Perdue (Fall 1954)

• College Deans Bro. William Morris Nix (Fall 1936) and Brailsford Reese Brazeal

• Bro. Hamilton Earl Holmes (Fall 1960), who desegregated the University of Georgia

• Rev. Bro. Otis Moss Jr. (Fall 1955), nationally renowned theologian

• Civil rights leader Bro. T.M. Alexander Sr. (Fall 1929)

• Bro. Judge Horace Taliaferro Ward (Spring 1948), a legal trailblazer

• Founding Jewel Bro. Henry Arthur Callis, physician and co-founder of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

Earlier this summer, the APCAA uncovered yet another treasure: the long-lost original Alpha Rho Chapter charter, dated Saturday, January 5, 1924. At 101 years old, the document is one of the three oldest known surviving original charters of Alpha Phi Alpha chapters founded before 1945. Its discovery provides a rare and tangible link to the fraternity’s earliest years in Atlanta and deepens the historical significance of the collection.

Among his many honors, John Hope was elected Phi Beta Kappa at Brown in 1919. He received the Harmon Award for distinguished service in education in 1929 and was awarded the doctor of laws degree by Bates College and Brown, Bucknell, Howard, and McMasters universities.

A Legacy for Future Generations:

For Morehouse, Alpha Phi Alpha, and the broader African American community, these acquisitions are more than artifacts. They are sacred reminders of a lineage of leadership rooted in scholarship, service, and sacrifice.

From John Hope’s Spingarn Medal to the student protests of 1960, from the original Alpha Rho charter to the achievements of mayors, judges, theologians, and civil rights pioneers, each story preserved in The Alpha Rho Collection is not only one of the past — it is a blueprint for the future.

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NAACP Spingarn Gold Medal Awardees With Ties To Morehouse College:

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